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June 1939. "Country store. Wagoner County, Oklahoma." Medium format negative by Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration. View full size.
It may be obvious, but how does the scale on the pump work?
I assume the scale indicates gallons of gas. Is the glass container filled to the zero mark so that as gas is released the new level shows how much was purchased?
Perhaps another title could be: Abandon hope all ye who enter here. Difficult to believe that many products were on the shelves in this store on its last legs.
A feeling of hopelessness in this snapshot from the past.
Great-Grandmother and Grandmother were both snuff users. Snuff was nasty stuff. They would put it behind the bottom lip and spit every 5 or 10 minutes. Great-Grandmother lived to be 94 and used it till the day she died.
I'm guessing the place more or less survived a few tornadoes. Oh, and whoever left the broom outside, pick it up and get back to work.
Edgeworth Ready-Rubbed, a very nice blend of burley and Virginia, still out there as Lane Limited Ready-Rubbed.
The universal call of an old wooden screen door opening and closing. If I had a dollar for every time I heard that noise as a boy I could have retired much sooner.
I don't see any ads for cigars helping to hold this storefront up but a friend once told me that cigars were the only way to use tobacco economically. You smoke the cigar down as short as you want and extinguish the stub, chew up what is remaining until all the flavor is gone, place the old chew on a windowsill in the sun until it is completely dry, then powder up the remains and use it for snuff. All gone and no waste.
I wonder if anyone had enough change to buy that Ice Cold Coca-Cola.
Interesting ad for Red Raven tobacco twists. A twist was a bundle of cured, whole tobacco leaves that were rolled, twisted and tied into a pretzel like product.
This could then be grated into pipe tobacco or finer snuff, or cut into ropes and smoked as a crude cigar, or even chewed like a plug. It was basically a pure tobacco product that had gone through no processing or flavoring, and the user could consume it whatever way he preferred.
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